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A EULOGY, 



UPON THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 07 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 



\/ 



BY LEEOY POPE, Jr., Esq. 



DELIVERED AT MEMPHIS. TEMN,. 



On the 28tli Feb., 1853. 



^eh)f)i{i^, Jew.: 

EAGLE AND ENQUIRER STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 

1853. 



■■ 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

Memphis, March 8, 1853, 
LaaoT PoPB, Esq., 

Sir: — Wo heard with much interest and delight, the 
very chaste and eloquent Eulogy pronounced by you upon the life and 
character of Danikl Webster, at Odd-Fellows' Hall on the 28th ultimo; 
and we are assured that we express the wish of your large audience, and 
the public generally, as well as our own, in asking you to furnish a copy 
for publication. 

H. G. SMITH, 
T. H. ALLEN, 
W. B. MILLER, 
WM. A. BLYTHE, 
WM. C. CARR, 
J. WICKERSHAM, 
JAS. A. CARNES, 
WM. T. AVERY, 
JOS. R. WILLIAMS. 



Memphis, March 9, 1853. 
Gentlemen: — In obedience to your highly flattering request, I herewith 
enclose a copy of the Eulogy delivered by me on the 28th ult. 

It is proper to state that some passages have been added, which were 
omitted in the delivery, and also a few illustrative quotations from the 
speeches of Mr. Webster. 

With sentiments of high respect, 

Your obedient servant, 

LEROY POPE, JR. 
.Messrs. H. G. Smith, Thos. H. Allen, W. B. Miller, and others, 
Committee, &.c. 



OBmssBfamsaa 



am 



EULOGY.; 



The mind naturally delights in the contemplation of 
sublime objects. We love to gaze upon Niagara, as it 
heaves its ponderous mass of waters upwards to the sun, 
until the glittering arch breaks in varied splendor to the 
eye ; or, while hanging over its awful depths, the soul is 
stirred by the echoes of the Almighty's voice, in its ever- 
lasting thunder: None can stand under the shadow of Mont 
Blanc, crowned with its diadem of unfading snow, and 
watch the lances of light as they quiver upon its summit, 
in dazzling and ever shifting pomp, and not feel all the kind- 
ling sublimities of the scene: While musing on the shore of 
ocean, and the eye can find no limit to its expanse, imagijiiE.- 
tion exults in the boundless swell of its magnificence: So 
thus, in the presence of a superior intellect, the heart is 
lifted up with ennobling inspirations, each conception is 
vivified and enlarged, 4 ays of immortality burst and flame 
around us, and the whole man bows to the majesty of the 
intellectual God ! 

We have assembled, fellow-citizens, to-night, to trace the 
career of one of those mighty intellects of the nation, 
which, by the eloquent flow of its thought, and the m-ajestic 
sway of its reason, has thrilled and moved present genera- 
tions, and which is destined to rouse, inflame, exalt, and 
animate ali the generations of men which are to come 
after ps. 

IV 

• It is proper to state, that the intervention of Courts, find the indisposition 
of the writer, by which he was confined to the house over a month, prevented 
the delivery of this eulogy at the time originally proposed -— about the 8th 
of January. 






EULOGY ON WEBSTER I 



In its annual round, we have just greeted another birth- 
day of Washington — of the man of whom it was said by 
him, upon whose tomb we have come to cast our garlands 
of tributary woe : " While hundreds, whom party excite- 
ment, and temporary cii'cumstances, and casual combina- 
tions, have raised into transient notoriety, sink again like thin 
bubbles, bursting and dissolving into the great ocean, Wash- 
ington's fame is like the rock that bounds that ocean, and at 
whose feet its billows are destined to break harmlessly for- 
ever ! " And whose name and fame deserve more to be asso- 
ciated with the memories of that day than those of the ora- 
tor, who has transmitted to us and to our posterity the les- 
sons ot the Father of his Country, in language as immortal 
as his own immaculate glor5^* 

Let a more hallowed recollection gather around us now ! 
For all that is mortal of the eloquent eulogist has passed 
forever from among us! On the 24th of October, 1852, early 
in the morning of God's holiest day — that sublime day when the 
heart of the universe is stilled with repose — wdth an intellect 
still bright and unclouded — his soul attuned to immortal har- 
mony by the melodies of poetry f — peaceful, gentle, and 
hopeful — with the grandeur of his country, the tenderest 
afiections of his household, the mild but tearful eye of 
friendship, around him — sublimely grand, serenely beauti- 
ful — the Orator, the Statesman, the Patriot, sunk beneath 
the dark ocean of Eternity, 

" Like a ship that goes down at sea. 
When Heaven is all tranquillity ! " 

How difficult to realize the death of a truly great man ! 
How many electric chords of thought must be snapped 
asunder ! How many links of patriotic association must 
be broken up forever ! One short month passes away, and the 
Cabinet of the nation assembles, but the great Diplomatist, _ 
to catch the accents of whose wisdom, Kings are bending I 
from their thrones, is not there ! The Senate House is full, 
but the "choice and master spirit" of oratory is not there ! 



• The delivery of tins address on the niE;ht of the 2'2d of February, as at last 
intended, was prevented by the unfavorable state of the weather. The allusion 
to the character of Washington is thus accounted for. 

t It will be remembered that, In his last ho'ars, portions of Gray's Elegy were 
read to Mr. Webster. 



-J.y«»..-lUA.!HffM-.^-.U..«.— ...—vil^...:.— ,.»-..— ..— ^ 



iiiiiii m i Miii"™"-'"'"'" 



BY LEROY POPE, ESa. 5 



The grave answers, he is not there ! O, never more shall 
those eyes gaze upon your country's flag, or dart their fierce 
Uo-htnin2fs, upon those who would " blot out one star or erase 
one stripe from its folds. " Can that mighty heart be still, for 
whose high and holy aspiration for freedom a world was too 
narrow ! Never more shall we hear that voice, which moved 
the multitude to and fro like a sea when lashed by the wild 
breath of the tempest ! Shall the Promethean spark never 
again be rekindled ! Yes, yes, genius never dies ! The 
breath of the eternal God is in it! Roll back, ye dark shad- 
ows from the tomb ! Through the hollow chambers of death 
breaks the light of immortality ! I hear a voice saying " I 
STILL LIVE !" Yes, if ever the cloud should gather upon yon 
bright sun in his course, and cast its portentous gloom over 
the capitol of your country, and the fiends of discord, in their 
hellish fury, should smite your Eagle from his holiest altar, 
and trample the images of glory in the dust, if, then, some 
noble-hearted patriot, his breast swelling with high m.em- 
ories of the past, should tear your flag from the grasp of sac- 
rilegious hands, and bear it bravely up, " to float over the sea, 
and over the land, in all its original lustre" — upon its stream- 
ing folds shall be written, " I still live ! " If ever the slum- 
bering dead should start to life upon the rock of Salamis, or 
the breath of Leonidas wake the Spartan three hundred, and 
Marathon rekindle her fires around the Persian's tent, — if, 
through the gloom of dead empires and vanished glory, the 
star of Liberty should rise, and light up the shores of the 
Mediterranean with the spirit of ancient valor — or blaze upon 
the hill of the Acropolis — from the re-awakened earth, reeling 
beneath the red tide of battle, mingled with the cries of bleed- 
ing martyrs, and the shouts of struggling patriots, shall be 
heard that voice, " I still lr^e ! " 

The means which have been employed, the influences 
which have operated in the production of remarkable men, 
constitute, perhaps, the most interesting and instructive por- 
tion of their history. In the language of a distinguished 
English writer, " we love to dwell on every circumstance of 
splendid preparation which contributes to fit the great man 
for the scene of his glory. We delight to watch, fold by fold, 
the bracing on of his Vulcanian panoply, and observe with 



6 EULOGY ON WEBSTER : 

pleased anxiety the leading forth of that chariot, which, borne 
on irresistible wheels, and drawn by steeds of immortal race, 
is to crush the necks of the mighty, and sweep away the ser- 
ried strength of armies." 

On the 18th day of January, 1782, at Salisbury, New 
Hampshire, near the close of the grandest epoch in our his- 
tory, Daniel Webster was born. Mr. Webster was singu- 
larly fortunate in being descended from parents who were 
both eminently distinguished for moral and intellectual 
endowments. His mother, to unusual beauty of person, and 
to all the gentler virtues of her sex, united a strength and 
decision of purpose, a high Roman cast of character, which, 
while it lent dignity, elevation, and grace to a comparatively 
humble sphere of life, was well fitted to give tone and direc- 
tion to the mind of her gifted son. The first lessons of piety 
were instilled by this admirable mother. One of the first 
gifts to the studious boy was the sacred volume from her ven- 
erated hand. And perhaps it would be no idle speculation 
to suppose that then was awakened that sentiment of rever- 
ence which, in after life, kindled into one of the noblest 
defences of the whole system of Christianity, ever uttered in 
the temple of justice,, i*H;he Girard will case. 

In view of the pious influences so often exerted by the 
female in every stage of our existence, I have sometimes 
thought that the heart of woman was the depositary of the 
religious faith of the earth. In childhood, ere yet our lips are 
warm with the soft breathings of intelligence, she teaches us 
our first prayer: In youth, she sets the seal of reverence 
upon the brow ; in all the walks of manhood she guards us 
with her purit}' and love: She beautifies and adorns by her 
presence every scene of human enjoyment; and the same gen- 
tle hand which decorates the social temple with the Corinthian 
graces of polished life, twines the Amaranthine wreath around 
the holy altars of God. Though our brows may be blackened 
with the thunder scars of guilt, and the alienated eye of man 
may plunge us into the darkest dungeons of despair, from the 
throne of beauty, from the most splendid pinnacle of fortune, 
woman stoops to soothe us with the voice of love and conso- 
lation, to lift ua uj), prostrate and broken hearted, once more 
into the sunlight of hope. Her virtue is a perpetual shield 






immaMaatTgi. J mi»^i..)» 



EY LEEOY POPE, ESQ, 



to US upon earth, and sho opens the gates of Paradise ta ua 
hereafter. 

Clear practical ability, massive common sense, tlic noblest 
physical proportions, and a stern grandeur of spirit, were 
combined in the person and mental constitution of Ebenezer 
Webster, the father of our illustrious countryman. Though 
destitute of the advantages of liberal education, nature had 
qualified him for heroic struggles. He was born for the great- 
est duties which the discipline of adversity exacts, for the 
sternest self-sacrifice that poverty imposes upon her rugged 
children. His character was like a plain column of granite 
dug from his own New Hampshire hills, which, by its upright- 
ness, its elevation, and its solidity, might serve as a guide and a 
landmark of primitive beauty and glory to its neighborhood.* 

In early life Ebenezer Webster enlisted as a common sol- 
dier in the old French war of '56. By his gallantry and good 
conduct, before the close of the war, he rose to the rank of 
captain. He " with all his kith and kin," were conspicuous 
for their opposition to the policy of the British government 
towards her American colonies, signed the pledge of the old 
Continental Congress, embarking life and fortune, on the 
result of the war. Mr. Webster, in his late historical dis- 
course, in allusion to this fact, says : " This is sufficient 
emblazonry for my arms, enough of Heraldry for me." 

But Ebenezer Webster was not a man to be satisfied with 
the passive remonstrance of words and parchments, while the 
fires of revolutionary strife were blazing around him: He 
raised a company, testified his patriotism on many battle 
fields, and continued in active service throughout the war. 
Subsequently to the revolution he was elected a delegate to 
the State Convention which assembled at Concord, for the 
purpose of deliberating upon the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution. Though, at first, he, and his neighbors, were 
opposed to some features of the Constitution, upon hearing 
the discussions at Exeter, where the Convention first met, ke 
was convinced of the policy and necessity of its adoption, 
and by his commanding influence carried his whole neighbor- 
hood to its support. A speech made by him in the Conven- 
tion is fortunately preserved : 

• I am partly indebted to Mr. Webster for this idea. 

?rrTi TtarTiT . ''y''-^^-'""^"-'"-^'''"'^"-'='"'*^'"-'''°™ 



EULOGY ON WEBSTER : 



"Gentlemen: I have listened to the arg^uments for and'aorainst the 
Constitution. I am convinced such a government as that Constitution 
will establish if adopted — a government acting directly on the people of 
the States — is necessary for the common defense and the general welfare. 
It is the only government which will enable us to pay ofl" the national 
debt — the debt which we owe for the Revolution, and which we are bound 
in honor fully and fairly to discharge. Besides, I have followed the lead 
of Washington through seven years of war, and I have never been misled. 
His name is subscribed to this Constitution: he will not mislead us now. 
I shall vote for its adoption." 

Short as this speech is it might be mistaken forj^one of his 
great son's. It has the directness, force, and clearness of the 
same intellectual family ; and^manifests an unbounded hom- 
age for the name and virtues of Washington, which, in its 
hereditary passage, the more eloquent son caught up and 
clothed in a robe of ethereal splendor. At a later period of 
his history Ebenezer Webster filled, with credit and ability, the 
office of State Senator, and for some years served as a Judge 
of the Court of Common Pleas, and had the good fortune to 
hear, in that capacity, the first speech of the future orator of 
his house. 

But it was in the sphere of domestic life that he exhibited 
those interesting traits of character which lie, I believe, at the 
foundation of all solid public utility, and patriotic service. 
Deficient himself in education he was resolved that one of his 
sons, at least, should enjoy its inestimable benefits. A letter 
of Mr. Webster, written some few years since, indicates most 
happily what were the views and feelings of the father on this 
subject : 

"Of a hot day in July — it must have been one of the last years of Wash- 
ington's administration — I was making hay with my father, just where I 
now see a remaining elm tree, about the middle of the afternoon. The 
Hon. Abiel Foster, M. C, who lived in Canterbury, six miles off, called at 
the house, and came into the field to see my fatlier. He was a worthy 
man, college learned, and had been a minister, but was not a person of any 
considerable natural powers. My father was his friend and supporter. He 
talked a while in the field and went on his way. When he was gone, my 
father called me to him, and we sat down beneath the elm, on a hay-cock. 
He said, 'My son, that is a worthy man; he is a member of Congress; he 
goes to Philadelphia and gets six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is 
because he had an education, which I never had. If I had had his early 
education, I should have been in Philadelphia in his place. I came near 
it as it was; but I missed it, and now I must work here.' 'My dear father,' 



I 



BV LEROY POPE, ESa. 



said I, 'you shall not work; brother and I will work for you, and wear our 
hands out, and you shall rest; and I remember to have cried, and I cry 
now at the recollection. *My child,' said he, 'it is of no importance tome; 
I now live but for my children; I could not give your elder brother the 
advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for you; Exert yourself, 
improve your opportunities — learn, learn; and when I am gone, you will not 
need to go through the hardships which I have undergone, and which have 
made me an old man before my time.' 

"The next May he took me to Exeter, to the Phillips Exeter Academy — 
placed me under the tuition of its excellent preceptor. Dr. Benjamin Abbott, 
still living. 

"My father died in April, 1806. I neither left him nor forsook him. 
My opening an office at Boscawen was that I might be near him. I closed 
his eyes in this very house. He died at sixty-seven years of age, after a 
life of exertion, toil, and exposure — a private soldier, an officer, a legislator, 
a judge — every thing that a man could be, to whom learning never had dis- 
closed her 'ample page.' 

"My first speech at the bar was made when he was on the bench; he 
never heard me a second time. 

"He had in him what I recollect to have been the character of some of 
the old Puritans. He was deeply religious, but not sour; on the contrary, 
good humored, facetious, showing, even in his age, with a contagious lau"-h 
teeth all as white as alabaster; gentle, soft, playful, and yet having a heart 
in him that he seemed to have borrowed from a lion. He could frown; a 
frown it. was; but cheerfulness, good humor, and smiles composed his moat 
usual aspect." 

How touchingly beautiful is all this ! The father was wor- 
thy of the son ; the son was worthy of the father. The wise, 
fond parent held the noble child up to the glorious sun of 
freedom, and the rays of knowledge streamed down upon his 
breast, and kindled the soul of an orator who, in the maturity 
of his power, should rise 

" Above all Greek, above all Roman fame !" 



And the praises of that father shall be sung through resound- 
ing ages, wherever the majestic hymn celebrates the genius 
of the immortal boy. I cannot quit this part of my subject, 
without bringing to mind a reflection of the eloquent Dr. 
Channing : 

" The noblest influence on earth," he remarks, " is that 
exerted on character ; and he, who puts forth this, does a 
great work, no matter how narrow or obscure his sphere. 
The father and mother of an unnoticed family, who, in their 
seclusion, awaken the mind of one child to the idea and love 






10 EULOGY ON Webster; 

of perfect goodness, who awaken in him a strength of will to 
repel all temptation, and who send him out prepared to profit 
by the conflicts of life, surpass in influence a Napoleon 
breaking the world to his sway." Let us trace this Republi- 
can boy to the scene of his Senatorial triumphs in 1830 ; Idt i 
us behold the tide of Nullification rolled up to the door of 
vour National citadel — all the elements of internal strife met 
in mad conflict — let us place before us the transcendent 

I 

orator, baring his arm in the storm and the lightning, sway- : 
ino- the waves with irresistible influence, and driving them 
back, never to visit with their recoil the noblest fabric of 
human rights ever devised by the wisdom of man, then let 
us ask ourselves, if the preservation of this Union is not 
worth all the conquests of a Napoleon: And is it not a 
theme of proud congratulation, that there is not a boy now 
within the reach of my voice, I care not hov/ humble his lot 
may be, who may not, under auspicious parental influences, 
if God has given him genius, stand up, iu after life, the peer 
of the brightest intellectual spirits that adorn the courts and 
parliaments ofe ai'th? 

Mr. Webster, after having enjoyed such facilities of edu- 
cation as were then common in his father's neighborhood, 
entered Dartmouth College in 1797, and graduated at that 
institution in 1801. Such were the ardor and diligence with 
which he prosecuted his college studies, that it was thought 
by many he would obtain the valedictory — the highest honor 
bestowed on graduates. In this, however, he and his friends 
were disappointed, and the distinction was conferred upon a 
head much less illustrioua in the future annals of Dartmouth, 
and the world. Incensed and mortified, perhaps, by this un- 
expected blight upon his ambitious hopes, he deliberately 
tore up his Diploma in the presence of his classmates, 
exclaiming, " My industry may make me a great man, but 
this miserable parchment cannot." 

He was admitted to the Bar at Boston in 1805, his distin- 
guished friend and counsellor, Mr. Gore, placing him upon 
this prominent stage of life with the most sanguine predic- 
tions of his future eminence. His professional career was 
commenced at Boscawen, near his father's residence, and 
prosecuted, successively, afterwards at Portsmouth and Boston. 




'tj««iw.iimi M.. i uinm.ii!iJ.nu .'i'Li>iin.uiMiiJW!rr M 



BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. H 



But, however Rplendid the professional career to which 
Mr. Webster was destined, and no name now ranks higher 
in the annals of American jurisprudence, it was impossible 
for a mind of such large and comprehensive grasp, of such 
vigor and amplitude of thought, depth of knowledge, abun- 
dance and variety of illustrative resource, rare argumentative 
skill ; all its faculties so finely balanced, and harmoniously 
proportioned — warmed too and inspired by a broad national- 
ity of spirit — to expend its powers in the comparatively nar- 
row and technical field »f forensic disputation. 

Through the pressing solicitation of his friends he became 
a candidate for Congress, in 1812, and was elected a member 
from New Hampshire, and took his seat at the extra session, 
called in May, 1813. Mr. Webster entered public life with- 
out any previous political training in local State service. 
He had, however, won a 'high reputation at home by the 
strong and earnest ability manifested by him in the popular 
discussions of the time. Though one of the youngest mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives, that pre-eminently 
national statesman, and consummate judge of human nature, 
Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House, placed him, at once, 
on the committee of Foreign Relations, one of the most 
important committees known to that body. 

On the 10th of June, 1813, Mr. Webster made his first 
speech, upon certain resolutions, previously introduced by 
him, calling for information relative to the repeal of the 
Berlin and Milan decrees. Elaborate research, the widest 
range of historical illustration, fullness and completeness of 
detail, precision, clearness and force, in the treatment of the 
various topics connected with the subject, severe simplicity 
of style, relieved occasionally by earnest and impassioned 
passages of oratory, and an elevated tone of patriotism, w'ere 
the distinguishing characteristics of this first eflbrt of our 
Parliamentary speaker. It took the House captive, and 
awakened the astonishment and admiration of all who heard 
it. The great mind of Chief Justice Marshall was struck 
with the unusual display of ability j,nd political information 
in so young a man, and yielded itself up to the most sanguine 
prognostics of his future greatness. In a letter to Judge 
Story, written shortly after hearing this speech, he said : — 



12 EULOGY ON WEBSTER I 






*' Mr. Webster is destined to become one of the very first 
statesmen in America, and perhaps the very first." About 
the same time, that eminently sound patriot and honest man, 
Wm. Lowndes, of South Carolina, declared : — " The North 
had not his equal, nor the South his superior." 

Mr. Webster was not in Congress at the time of the decla- 
ration of the last war with Great Britain: But no public 
man of our day has encountered so much malignant misrep- 
resentation and foul calumny, as to his conduct and opin- 
ions connected with the prosecution of that war. In com- 
mon with the large mass of the Northern people he was 
opposed to the embargo and restrictive system of Mr. Jeffer- 
son, and in this Mr. Calhoun concurred with him fully. It is 
not improbable that Mr. Webster participated, to some 
extent, in the general feeling of prejudice and hostility to the 
war, wdiich prevailed at the North at its commencement, 
resulting from the extreme sensibility of the great commer- 
cial interests, already seriously disturbed by the policy of our 
government, and still more fatally involved in the issuesj of 
the contest. But while in Congress he displayed, in his gen- 
eral course, the lofty spirit of a patriot, and was a most stren- 
uous advocate of the increase of the Navy. Our brilliant 
naval victories soon after proved his profound sagacity in 
relying mainly on this arm of ^our national defence, in a con- 
test with that great maritime power, of which her poets 
boasted, as said by him, 

" Her march was o'er the mountain wave, 
Her home was on the deep." 

The charter of the old Bank of the United States having 
expired in 1811, the subject of a National Bank was 
brought before Congress in the sessions of 1815-16. In the 
discussion of this question Mr. Webster exhibited that thor- 
ough knowledge of the relations of currency and exchange, 
that depth of financial skill, and those profound constitu- 
tional views, which, in the popular harangues and the mem- 
orable Senatorial debates of a later day, were matured into 
those magnificent displays of fiscal and commercial wisdom 
which have never been surpassed, and which have been 
equalled only by the masterly genius of Alexander Hamilton. 

It is not to be expected on an occasion like this, that I 
phould go into a minute exposition of Mr. Webster's political 



BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. 13 



views : By doing so I should entrench upon the graver 
province of the historian and the biographer, exhaust your 
patience, and swell this address to the size of a volume. 

In December, 1820, Mr. Webster delivered at Plymouth 
his first grand historical discourse. It has been his peculiar 
fortune to associate his fame with nearly every sacred spot, 
consecrated memory, or hallowed name in American history: 
J^s his genius bends over Plymouth rock, gazes out upon the 
sea, walks among the tombs of the mighty dead, or com- 
munes in the councils of the wise of old, with its Homeric 
fire, it makes a sublime "prose epic" of nearly all the heroic 
annals of the past. 

It was in 1824, that the Greek revolution drew forth one of 
those stately and model orations, where the minds of the 
statesman, the philosopher, and the historian unite to light 
up a fire on the shrines of human glory, which shall spread 
its illumination throughout the earth. With the breath of 
an oracular God he thus summons the nations to the bar of 
Public O pinion' : 

" Moral causes come into consideration, in proportion as the progress of 
knowledge is advanced ; and the public opinion of the civilized world is 
rapidly gaining an ascendency over mere brutal force. It may be si- 
lenced by military power, but it cannot be conquered. It is elastic, irre- 
pressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary warfare. It is that 
impassable, inextinguishable enemy of mere violence and arbitrary rule, 
which, like Milton's angels, 

' Vital in every part, 
Cannot, but by annihilating, die.' 

Unless this be propitiated or satisfied, it is in vain for power to talk either 
of triumphs or repose. No matter what fields are desolated, what fort- 
resses surrendered, what armies subdued, or what provinces overrun, there 
is an enemy that still exists to check the glory of these triumphs. It fol- 
lows the conqueror back to the very scene of his ovations ; it calls upon 
him to take notice that the world, though silent, is yet indignant ; it shows 
him that the sceptre of his victory is a barren sceptre ; that it shall confer 
neither joy nor honor, but shall moulder to dry ashes in his grasp. In the 
midst of his exultation, it pierces his ear with the cry of injured justice ; it 
denounces against him the indignation of an enlightened and civilized age; 
it turns to bitterness the cup of his rejoicing, and wounds him with the 
sting which belongs to the consciousness of having outraged the opinion 
of mankind." 

But it was in 1830 that Mr. Webster's genius rose to a 
height of oratorical grandeur, which fixed it forever upon a 






EULOGY ON WEBSTER 




SSBBSDBSaK! 



national pinnacle, turned all eyes towards it in the perilous 
exigencies of the country, gave to it the imposing splendor of 
a judicial oracle, and won for him the illustrious title of the 
"Defender of the Constitution." 

It is now twenty-three years since Nullification began to 
shed its disastrous light upon the councils of the nation: As 
the eye stretches back through this interval of less than a 
quarter of a century, what amazing progress does this glori- 
ous land of ours exhibit ! What giant developments of the 
genius and power of art ! Thought speeding upon wires, 
traversing continents, with the swiftness of the lightning's 
wing ! What triumphs of civilization, w^hat moral elevation, 
what abundance of physical enjoyment ! Wliat unparal- 
leled mineral and agricultural resources ! What rapid en- 
largement of territory, what vast increase of commercial 
power ! How are the channels of intercommunication multi- 
plied ! The heels of the iron horse are daily ringing from 
city to city, from river to river ; with his fiery breath he is 
breaking through the ribs of the mountains ; and he will not 
stop until his gigantic foot treads upon the shores of the 
Pacific. During this period of time your men of science, 
your orators and statesmen, your artists, your poets and 
prose wTiters have written their names upon the loftiest pil- 
lars of fame's temple. What a spectacle do you present to 
the world ! Look upon your flag ! Thirty-one stars are now 
shedding their illumination upon two oceans ; beneath its 
protecting folds more than twenty millions of freemen are 
kneeling at one common altar, kindled, inflamed, animated 
by one great sentiment of equal, civil, political, and religious 
privileges ! And how does the future magnify in prospect ! 
Awed, dazzled, overwhelmed, imagination sinks beneath the 
weight of its inconceivable grandeur ! What a gift then, 
what a genius, what apou-er is that, which has saved all these 
things from the night of perpetual gloom and annihilation ! 
And who can say that we do not owe their preservation to 
the more than Roman patriot, whose eloquent tongue is 
hushed forever in the silence of the grave ! O, I could stand 
here and almost weep over the ingratitude of my country, 
the debasement and infatuation of party, when I am told, in 



BY LEROY POPE, KSa. 15 



cold and sneering derision, that such a man should not be, 
or could not be. President of the United States. 

It will be remembered by those who are familiar with the 
period to which I am now referring, that it was not until 
sometime after the debate on Foote's resolution, and after 
his breach with John C. Calhoun, and when South Carolina 
was bristled all over with the Legislative decrees and State 
ordinances, in open defiance of the Federal Government, that 
Gen. Jackson came to the rescue of the country; but when 
he did come, he came to some purpose, for he was no half 
way man. The first great blow to nullification was given by 
the single arm of Webster. 

In the remarkable debate of 1830, the gallant South Caro- 
linian, Gen. Hayne, had every advantage of position. He 
was a prominent friend of Gen. Jackson's administration, then 
flushed with the recent conquests of party : He was sus- 
tained and encouraged in his assaults upon New England, 
and her great representative, by a very powerful combina- 
tion of talent, consisting of Calhoun, Benton, Forsyth, Grun- 
dy, and others. Mr. Webster was identified with a then 
unpopular political minority. The speech of Gen. Hayne, 
delivered on the 21st., of January, displayed considerable 
ability. It was full of bold and vehement declamation, pour- 
ino- out accusation after accusation against New England 
men and measures ; the Hartford Convention, the vitupera- 
tive eftusions of a rabid press, and a still more rabid pulpit, 
in opposition to the war with Great Britain, were held up, in 
bold relief, to the unmeasured scorn and indignation of all 
patriotic minds. The Southern wing of the administration 
were charmed and elated beyond all power of expression 
with the boldness and imputed success of the onslaught. 
Nothing was heard but the exulting tones of triumph. The 
Senate chamber, the streets and alleys of Washington rung 
with such panegyrics upon the victorious champion of the j 
South, that a Yankee v\'as hardly to b6 seen upon Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue. But it was not long before these tones of 
exultation were swept, as before the breath of a whirlwind, 
from the minds of men. The reply came, and the magnifi- 
cent 9omposure with which the Northern Achilles received 



rUTTTTTTt 



1(5 EULOGY ON WEBSTER 



the tremendous battery which had been let loose upon him, 
is evinced in the very first paragraph of his speech : 

" Mr. Presidemt : When the mariner has been tossed, for many days, 
in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of 
the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his lat- 
itude, and ascertain how fur the elements have driven him from his true 
course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther, refer to 
the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjec- 
ture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution." 

The resolution was read. Then followed that glorious 
philippic, which, for felicity and dexterity of retort — its pas- 
sages of personal sarcasm — for vigor of reasoning, dignity 
and elevation of tone, for the force and purity of its style, its 
magnificent apostrophes, and the intense glow of its patriot- 
ism, may be regarded as the finest Parliamentary effort that 
ever fell from human lips. In saying this I may offend the 
shades of Demosthenes, Cicero, Chatham, Burke, and Fox : 
But there stands the speech, and there it will stand as long 
as genius has a votary, or liberty an advocate upon the face 
of the globe. Since the delivery of that speech nullification 
has never been able to hold up its head out of the State of 
South Carolina ; and there it was kept alive by the splendid 
genius, and the resistless force of the personal character of 
John C. Calhoun. 

I cannot pretend to trace Mr. V/ebster through every stage 
of his Parliamentary career. Living in the midst of the 
most intense political excitements, he was connected with 
every great and leading question of his time: A National 
Bank, the Currency, the Tariff, Internal Improvenients, Com- 
merce, our Foreign Relations, every phase of constitutional 
power, involving the relations of the States and the General 
Government, and the different departments of the latter, 
have, each and all, been the subjects of popular and Parlia- 
mentary discussion : And to these various topics he always 
brought a mind of the highest elevation of patriotic senti- 
ment, unbounded range of vision, and of inexhaustible depth, 
variety, and resource. 

The second most remarkable era of Mr. Webster's public 
life was the 7th of March, 1850. It is an idea of Boling- 
broke's, that some men appear to be marked out by a pecu- 
liar designation of Providence, to accomplish the great pur- 



BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. 17 



poses, the noblest ends of government and society. Not in 
vain are the highest powers of the human intellect bestowed ; 
not in vain do we find a moral courage which conquers all 
selfish infirmity, laughs at external danger, beats down ad- 
versary after adversary, until it rises to the sublimest tri- 
umphs of genius, virtue and patriotism. Webster and Clay 
seem to have been chosen instruments in the hands of God 
to guard this Union in all its purity, strength, and glory. 

We all remember the disturbing questions growing out of 
the large accession of foreign territory — the result of the 
Mexican war. Slavery, and its kindred and collateral topics, 
had roused every malignant demon of faction, North and 
South. Extreme and disorganizing doctrines were advoca- 
ted at opposite points of tlie country : Fire eating secession- 
ists, and abolition disunionists, losing all sense of past glory, 
all veneration for the great names of history, and furiously 
contemning the restraints of the constitution, were ready to 
tear down our national temple, and erect upon its ruins a 
Northern or Southern confederacy — a fabric without one ele- 
ment of strength, beauty, or durability — the morbid creation 
of their own heated and diabolical fancies. It was then, that 
Webster and Clay, while the storm of fanaticism was beating 
upon one end of the Capitcl, and the lightnings of discord 
streaming in at the other, flaming around pillar and altar, laid 
their hands upon the ark of the constitution, and rising above 
the perishable glory of a day, with a godlike serenity, lifting 
their voices above the roar of faction, silenced the tempest, 
and quenched the wrath of the thunderbolt! 

On the 25th of January, 1850, Mr. Clay introduced a series 
of resolutions connected with slavery and the acquisition of 
new territory — commonly known as the Compromise resolu- 
tions. It was in the progress of the discussion on these sub- 
jects, that the speech of the 7th of March was delivered: 
As we dwell upon its deep and thrilling tones, its fervent 
aspirations, its profound philosophical and historical research, 
it sounds like the last solemn anthem for the Union and the 
Constitution, from the grandest intellectual organ ever heard 
in the Legislative Halls of our country : 

"And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or util- 
ity of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead 

! 



■illplMlMMMMMi 



18 EULOGY ON WEBSTER: 

of groping- with tliose ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us 
come out into the light of day ; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and 
Union ; let us cherish those hopes which belong- to us ; let us devote our- 
selves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our 
action ; let us raise onr conceptions to the magnitude and the importance 
of the duties that devolve upon us ; let our comprehension be as broad as 
the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain des- 
tiny ; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there- 
devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, 
for the preservation of this Constitution, and the harmony and peace of all 
who are destined "to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the 
strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I 
fondly beheve, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution 
for ages to come. We have a great, popular, constitutional government, 
guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the 
whole people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no 
iron chain of military power encircles them ; they live and stand under a 
government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded 
upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for 
ever. In all its history it has been beneficent ; it has trodden down no 
man's liberty ; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and 
patriotism ; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and hon- 
orable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country now, has by 
recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends, with a 
vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the 
world wash the one and the other shore. We realize, on a mighty 
scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the buckler of 
Achilles : 

" 'Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned 
With hi3 last hand, and poured the ocean round ; 
In living silver seemed the wavei to roll, 
And heat the buckler's ver^e, and bound the whole.' " 

This was the crowning glory of Mr. Webster's Senatorial 
labors. 

It was on the 4th of July, 1851, that Mr. Webster delivered 
an address at the laying of the corner stone of the new wing 
of the Capitol. It was a striking characteristic of his mind, 
that it seemed to adapt itself with perfect readiness, and the 
highest felicity, to whatever subject or occasion it was called 
upon to celebrate. No man could draw more vividly a grand 
national or Iilstoiical picture. For this reason, as before sta- 
ted, his name is inseparably connected with the most memo- 
rable scenes, and brightest eras of American glory. Wliile 
gazing upon the Capitol of the nation, with its new and 



BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. 10 



expanding proportions, the bosom of the orator swells with 
the loftiest emotions of pride, gratitude and joy. He calls to 
liis aid the majestic genius of Washington, and seems to be 
standing in his very presence, while, with pro])hetic vision, 
he anticipates and hivokes the choicest blessings of Heaven 
upon his country's destiny. The pillared marble, as it rises 
up and glows in the light of his sublinie auguries, Avill carry 
the noble memories cf the scene down to the latest posterity. 

When w^e turn to the Diplomatic career of Mr. Webster, 
we are struck with an exhibition of mental power, so rare 
and extraordinary, that it would seem as if nature, and the 
discipline of public life, had intended him for that peculiar 
sphere of action, and none other. Those great and perplex- 
ing questions which, for more than half a century, had defied 
" e^ery expedient of Diplomacy," and driven England and 
the United S'ates to the perilous edge of a hostile arbitra- 
ment, under the auspices of his unrivalled tact and sagacity — 
and the unmatched force and eloquence of his pen — were 
brought to a conclusion so fortunate as to command the 
applause and approbation of the master minds of both coun- 
tries. 

It is worthy of remark, that Mr. Webster carried into the 
discussion of all points of international law a heart emphati- 
cally American. In no instance, in my opinion, has he made 
a concession, or yielded a doctrine, which would blemish the 
honor, or retard and embarrass the just and enlightened dif- 
fusion of American principles throughout the world. The 
results of these long-pending, and more recent international 
controversies, show the incalculable importance of placing 
men of the very first order of ability in responsible public 
stations. There can be no doubt, that the satisfactory ad- 
justment of the Xorth Eastern boundary question was owing-, 
in an eminent degree, to the unbounded respect and admira- 
tion, felt in England, for the genius and public character of 
Mr. Webster. Lord Ashburton, the special minister and 
negotiator to the United States, told Mr. Everett, that he 
should have despaired of an advantageous settlement but for 
his confidence in the upright and honorable character of the 
American Secretary. 



sii'jgiimjssammmoBaBsaai 



20 EULOGY ON WEBSTER 



The letters to M. de Bocanegra, and the Chevalier Ilulse- 
mann, for force and beauty of style, and as expositions of well 
defined American policy, will remain as models of perpetual 
reference and authority, in regulating our intercourse with 
Foreign nations. It is now beyond question that Mr. Web- 
ster's pen infused into the English Government a larger and 
more liberal tone on the subjects of the " Right of Search," 
and the impressment of British seamen. 

In delineating the general character of Mr. Webster's elo- 
quence, the first thing that strikes the mind is its strong and 
massive foundation — its weight and solidity of thought. 
Amplitude of information, comprehension of view, une- 
qualled precision, gigantic powers of reasoning, an imagina- 
tion that could embellish a subject with the grandest image- 
ry, or throw over it a majestic robe of light, yet ordinarily 
chastised by the severest taste — a style simple, pure, vigor- 
ous — transparent as the atmosphere — and made up of words 
perfectly adjusted to their places — conspired to form a noble 
and harmonious mental structure. Reading, says Lord Ba- 
con, makes a full man. Webster's mind was full to over- 
flowing. He was not only one of the finest orators, but, in a 
political sense, he was the best informed man in America. 
No man was more deeply read in the constitution ; no man 
was so thoroughly acquainted with every department of 
American history. He had conversed with the mighty spirits 
of Washington, Adams, Hancock, Otis, Hamilton, Madison, 
and Jefferson, until their great thoughts, their familiar speech 
flowed through every vein of his intellectual system. 

It never could be said of him, matcriem superahat opus — 
that the workmanship was finer than the material — the 
thought overlaid by the brilliancy of its covering. No impet- 
uosity of imagination, no flight of rhetoric, could ever divert 
or seduce him from " the thing to be proved, the deed to be 
done : " The fundamental principle, the great fact, the 
philosophical conclusion, were always there, giving weight 
and direction to his genius, in every variety of its manifesta- 
tion." To find his equal or his superior we must go back to 
Edmund Burke. In comprehensiveness of [intellect ; in the 
eye that [sweeps in the direct, the collateral, and the remote; 
in the possession of all knowledge which affects the opera- 



BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. 



tions of government, they were two ol' the greatest men that 
ever lived. In invention and imagination, Burke was the 
superior ; in compact, massive, continuous, and perfectly sus- 
tained power of argumentation, Webster had no equal in 
Parliamentary history. In his great moments, the hand of 
Titan was visible in every link of the voluminoiis chain of 
his logic ; and as he wound it around his subject or his adver- 
sary, the latter found no refuge save in retreat or death. In 
fertility of thought, in exhaustless resource, in depth of polit- 
ical wisdom, in richness of imagination, in copiousness, vari- 
ety, and flexibility of style, Burke was the greatest master of 
prose composition that England has produced. * 

A late English writer, in speaking of Calhoun and Web- 
ster, says the chain of argumentation of the former was to 
Webster's as shining tissues of attenuated glass to the large, 
close-twisted, glittering strands of steel, with which the " Ex- 
pounder of the Constitution," supported hnnself and bound 
his antagonists. In this comparison some injustice is proba- 
bly done to Mr. Calhoun. In illustrating the difference be- 
tween the two, the genius of Calhoun may be said to resem- 
ble a burning glass, which draws the light of the sun to a 
point, producing, if I may so speak, intensity without breadth 
of ray ; while the genius of Webster was like the sun him- 
self, combining strong heat with the widest diffusion of light — 
the utmost magnificence of effulgence, f 

An acute English critic said, the eloquence of Chatham 
made men act, the eloquence of Burke made them think; 
Clay was the Chatham of the American Senate, and W^eb- 
ster the Burke, with this difference, that Webster excelled 

* When I say Ent^land has produced, — I mean her public institutions — her 
Parliament and political associations ; Burke, as is well known, was a native of 
Ireland. His genius was not only an honor to his own country, but to the 
whole human race. So intense and unbounded is my admiration for him, that I 
am always disposed to look favorably upon Irish genius and Irish character. 

t I do not wish this comparison to be taken too literally , as I might be under- 
stood as underrating the genius of Mr. Calhoun. The figure is used to illustrate 
the peculiar characteristics of the two men — concentration and intensity being 
Ihe distinguishing: features of the mind of the former, and breadth and compre- 
hension of that of the latter. Calhoun's intellect was unquestionably one of the 
most remarkable of the age : Let him who doubts this for one moment, read his 
great speech, delivered in 1833, in support of the resolutions introduced by him 
on the subject of State and Federal powers. It is probably the most splendid 
exhibition of analytical power to be found in Parliamentary annals. It required 
the powerful, masterly, and luminous argument of Webster, in reply, to break its 
grasp upon the public mind. 



22 EULOGY ON WEBSTER : 



Burke in the physical attributes of the orator, had more Par- 
liamentary tact, was less discursive, and produced more 
direct, immediate, practical effect. 

Mr. Webster's eloquence was original ; it was all his own. 
Enriched as his mind was with Ancient and Modern lore, his 
oratory every where bore the unmistakable stamp of its ori- 
gin ; the soul of the American patriot burned and flashed 
through every line and syllable of it. No man, says Doctor 
Johnson, was ever great by imitation. The truth is, every 
man of genius individualizes his art: " Le style est I'homme " 
— "the style is the man." When the learned writer, just 
mentioned, was asked whether Edmund Burke resembled 
TuUius Cicero, " No, Sir," was the repl}', " he resembled 
Edmund Burke." Chatham, Burke, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, 
Grattan, and Curran, were the most brilliant and extraor- 
dinary men of their time ; and yet they were all unlike in 
the respective character of their eloquence : and in the 
splendid triumvirate of our own country, how quickly do we 
recognize the flashing blade of Clay, the keen seimetar of 
Calhoun, or the ponderous battle-axe of Webster. 

Perhaps it would be no injustice to others to apply to 
Mr. Webster the observation made w'th regard to Edmund 
Burke — "He was the most eloquent man of his time, and 
his wisdom was greater than his eloquence. " Surely no 
man in our country has left behind such treasures of political 
knowledge. Lord Lyttleton has said, if it were possible for 
all past vestiges of man's nature to be destroj^ed, and no 
monument of his passions were left, save what w^as to be found 
in the writings of Shakspeare, from these alone we might 
infer what man was.* So, if this Republic were struck from 
the map of nations, and no other trace of its political 
existence could be found, it would not be extravagant to say, 
that the whole scope and policy of American institutions, the 
theory and structure of our government, the very soul of 
American Liberty, might be learned from the writings of 
Daniel Webster. I speak here in a general philosophical 
sense, and without reference to particular local doctrines. 

•I flo not pretend to give Lord Lyttlefon's phraseo!op;y in this idea, as it is 
long since I read the '•Dialogues of tiie Dead/' in which it occurs. 1 believe 
the thought is substantially represented. 



JH..iJIUlltll 



l!Y LEROY POPK, ESQ. 23 

Mr. Webster had Ibrined the most elevated conceptions of 
the duty and office of a Statesman. He scorned the arts of 
the Demagogue: He never plead the cause of a faction: He 
spoke for his Country, for Liberty, for mankind, as if the 
weight of the whole American character rested upon his 
tongue. In debate he rose uniformly above the earthly contact 
of partisan strife, and vulgar passion: He resembled the bird 
of Jove in one of his noblest flights; when he was surrounded 
by an atmosphere so pure, that nothing but the sunlight of 
Heaven could fall upon his glittering wings. 

There is one grand feature in Mr. V\^ebster's public life 
which manifested itself in every form of expression, admoni- 
tion, and stirring and powerful appeal to his countrymen; and 
for which, if for nothing else, his name should be written, in 
letters of living light, upon every monument of national 
enterprize and glory — upon every radiant banner of American 
freedom; and that is, his profound, passionate, intense and 
inextinguishable love for the Union. The Union, with all "its 
gorgeous ensigns," was the first great vision of his manhood, 
the last magnificent dream of his declining years: Not more 
surely did the jealous Othello cherish the honor of his 
wife, not more surely was power dear to the soul of a Csesar 
or a Cromwell, not more surely did the "pride, pomp^ and 
circumstance of war" dazzle the eyes of a Napoleon, or the 
blaze of the battle field carry a bewildering joy to a Scott or a 
Jackson, than did the grandeur and perpetuation of this Union 
inflame with high hope and rapturous exultation the noble 
heart of Webster. With this theme his genius always rises 
to its proudest elevation: 

Other misfortunes may be borne or their effects overcome. If disas- 
trous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation 
may renew it; if it exhaust our Treasury, future industry may replenish it; 
if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they 
will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle, 
even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars 
should fall and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the 
valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall re-construct the 
fabric of demolished government] Who shall rear again the well-propor- 
tioned columns of Constitutional liberty] Who shall frame together the 
skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, 
individual security, and public prosperity] No, Gentlemen, if these 
columns fall they will be raised not again. Like the Coloseum and the 

r^Tsr^rrr^ .^^.^ T,».^.-.. i I iii ii i i iiiii i B iii ii i m ii m ill II — 



24 EULOGY ON WEBSTER : 



Parthenon they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. 
Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the 
monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of 
a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw — the edifice of 
Constitutional Ameiican liberty.* 

Mr. Webster was endowed with a moral courage which 
seemed to rise and meet the most extraordinary emergencies 
which could test the force of public character. He wanted, 
perhaps, the prompt and impetuous daring of Henry Clay: 
But in constitutional and moral intrepidit}^, Clay was surpassed 
by no man that ever lived. Though followed for more than 
a quarter of a century by a "hunt of obloquy," as fierce and 
malignant as ever fell to the lot of a statesman, his spirit 
never quailed, or faltered, or was jostled, for one moment, 
from the elevated path of duty and patriotism. He was like 
one of those huge oaks of the forest, which, for more than 
seventy winters, had mocked at the thunder and defied the 
tempest : Though all the Avinds of Heaven may have howled 
around it, and the lightnings streamed and flashed through 
its branches, yet, when the storm passed away, it rose in 
unbroken majesty, and towering magnificence to the sun. 

The genius of Mr. Webster passed through the perilous 
gloom which surrounded it in 1850, and reappeared with 
renovated lustre, bringing to mind the noble lines of Milton : 

" So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 

And yet anon repairs his droopmg head, 

And tricks his beams, and, with new spanglpd ore, 

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky." 

There is one point of view in which the speeches and wri- 
tings of Mr. Webster deserve the special regard of society 
and public men ; and that is, the sentiment of reverence 
which every where pervades them. Not a line can be found 
i in which he sneers at, or ridicules, or trifles with the great 
truths of Christianity. His mind had drunk deeply at the 
sublimcst fountains of human wisdom, and though his genius 
may have been clouded with errors and infirmities, it has 
left the everlasting record of its belief, and invoked, with its 
dying breath, the atoning blood of a Saviour. It is right and 
proper, on occasions like this, that we should avail ourselves 

•Speech delivered at Washington, in 1833, on the Centennial Birthda}^of Wash- 
ington. 






_.i.iiuii.ji.i... .iiLi«i.j««ji. -,«• -...■'■i' ni.nj ..ji.- m.iL.-..M.-.;.j.i-ii.i-Mm..- ii..jiw!T5irtr^ ■■.«..mi«>. .m.»^.-»»— 1» 

BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. 25 

of the testimonies of remarkable men, to the truth, and 
beauty, and excellency of a Christian system. It is delight- 
ful to contemplate the last hour of such a man as Clay, 
which, like an unsullied mirror, reflected not only the glori- 
ous form of his country's freedom, but the beauteous image 
of the cross of Christ. I stand not here, in a spirit of affec- 
tation, to read a moral lecture, for temporary effect. It is 
my firm conviction, that the whole fabric of government, of 
law, and of morals, must rest upon the solid rock of eternal 
truth. It is to be deplored that we so often find in profes- 
sional and public men a sneering levity, and contemptuous 
scepticism: Come up to this tomb and let us see if we can- 
not find the evidence and inspiration of a Deity : Let us 
survey this majestically formed intellect; let us trace it 
through all its stages of progressive power, sublimity, and 
splendor — penetrating the depths of human passion, unfold- 
ing the springs of government, reading the past, anticipating 
the future, wielding the whole thunder of the Forum, extract- 
ing philosophy from the pages of universal knowledge, then 
rising " from nature up to nature's God," soaring to the far- 
thest star, calling world after world around it, until it wheels 
in circles of eternal light, and tell me, can this " capability 
and God-like reason " be the offspring of blind chance ! 
Pause then, pause, infatuated mortal, who would roll up the 
billows of scepticism between God and his creation. 

If then man be formed in the image of a celestial Ruler, 
and all government must, at last, be resolved iiito an expres- 
sion of the Divine will, where should the highest duties and 
responsibilities of religion rest, if not in the minds of those 
who control the destinies of the world. When the mighty 
man of earth can say, with a holy and sublime consciousness 
of his rectitude, " I fear God, I have no other fear ! " then, 
indeed, is he fitted for the most exalted offices of a patriot. 

In looking back upon this long and illustrious political 
career, we are struck with the vast intellectual proportions 
which go to form the mind of a great statesman. The 
genius of such a man is the noblest gift of God to the world 
— the pride and ornament of the human race. Brilliant as 
are the achievements of the laurel-crowned hero, they dwin- 
dle away before the majesty of that intellectual sceptre 

BBg^LII»|l|.WBIIMI«IIHU IILIUII IIPIBlilUIL II II IliUMIIMWI M] I .IIWIMI IIMBmilllLI liU [■■mWBWW^ 



—imuM .IJI..JI.L.IL1L ,.MI>JJJi.iy-l.)»Wl'Ji','.tW'J-J.IAM.IJ.>MJ' ■ll'l.','JiJL)i.- ..',..,'. !JiiAML.mjiU..I'J."..H.^.lULIM 

2G EULOGY ON ^VEDSTER : 

which holds a perpetual sway over the interests of society, 
and the progress of nations. The victories of Csesar, though 
the marvels of their time, have ceased to influence the policy 
of States, but the Forum is still eloquent with the language 
of Cicero : Phillip of Macedon vanquished Greece, but the 
genius of Demosthenes, for more than two thousand years, 
has subjugated the lettered world. The fame of JMarlbo- 
rough is felt only in its incitements to military ambition, but 
the mind of Burke continues to illuminate the cabinets of 
Kings, and the altars of constitutional freedom. The histo- 
rian tells of the battles of Washington, but the ship of State 
is now moving in the light of his civil wisdom. 

In turning to the private life of Mr. Webster, there is 
much that we can dwell upon with unmixed satisfaction — 
affectionate respect, and grateful veneration. There was a 
time when it was thought, that there was more of an isolated 
sublimity, of cold and austere majesty, than of grace, tender- 
ness, and beauty in his social character. The hand of the 
recent biographer has wholly dispelled the fallacy of this 
impression. He was a man of pure, simple, and republican 
tastes. His heart was noble, magnificently generous, and 
warmly inspired by all those sweet, gentle, and beautiful 
affections which cluster around the domestic altar. His let- 
ters to his old schoolmasters, and to his earlier friends, are 
full of the most touching reminiscences, and enchanting sim- 
plicity, and show that all the cares and honors of public life 
could not blot out the grateful, the tender, the unsophistica- 
ted affections of the boy. Filial love was the ornament of 
his childhood, the crowning grace of his manhood. 

Nature had lavished its noblest graces upon the person of 
Mr. Webster. When we gazed upon his stalwart and well 
proportioned figure, his broad, imperial forehead, his deep, 
dark eye, fraught with lightning, his majestic mien, and then 
turned to the monuments which his genius had scattered 
along his country's pathway, it would seem as if there had 
been a contest between the physical and intellectual man 
which should have the ascendency, whether the gem or its 
framework were the finest of God's workmanship. 

Had this remarkable man, you will say, none of the ordi- 
nary frailties of humanity? There were doubtless vices, 



3IBES 



BY LEROY POPE, ESQ. 27 

and poUtical delinquencies, which a stern moralist might 
hold up to public chastisement, to the just reprobation of his 
countrymen ; but rather than seek to separate these from the 
virtues by which they were surrounded, I choose to adopt the 
eloquent language of Boudaloue, employed in reference to 
the Grand Conde : 

" There is not a luminary in the heavens, which does not 
sometimes suffer an eclipse : and the sun, which is the most 
splendid of them, sulTers the greatest and most remarkable: 
two circumstances in these particularly deserve our consid- 
eration ; one, that, in these eclipses, the sun suffers no sub- 
stantial loss of light, and preserves his regular course ; the 
other, that during the time of the eclipse, the universe con- 
templates it with most interest, and watches its variations 
with most attention. The prince, whom we lament, had his 
eclipses, it would be idle to attempt concealing them ; they 
were as visible as his glory : but he never lost the principle 
of rectitude which ruled his heart : * * * Thus 
the eclipse was temporary, and the golden flood remain unim- 
paired." Let us believe too, in oi^r illustrious countryman, 
the obscuration was temporary, while the "golden flood" of 
his genius and his virtues remained unimpaired to the world. 

What incentives to usefulness, to honor, to a noble and 
generous ambition, does such a life present to the young men 
of our country. Let us follow this New Hampshire boy, 
trudging through the snow drifts of winter, with an eye every 
where eager and restless for knowledge ; let us trace him to 
the little shop, spending his last quarter of a dollar, in the 
purchase of a cotton handkerchief, upon which was written 
the constitution of his country ; let us stand by him while he 
is poring over it at night, perhaps by an imperfect light, in 
his obscure dwelling; let us accompany him a little further 
on, and see him leaning upon his father's bosom, to adopt 
Mr. Everett's idea, with a heart bursting with gratitude, 
because he was about to bestow upon him the advantages of 
College education ; — and are not these scenes as full of high, 
and holy, and encouraging inspirations, as that other one, in 
after life, when the voice of the Senator shook the pillars of 
your temple in driving out the foes of the constitution ? 

Here then is your model : — 

V. Remember — Resemble — Persevere ! " 

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28 EULOGY ON WEBSTER : 



If you have not his genius, gather up his knowledge, emu- 
late his industry, press forward upon his indefatigable 
wing ; fix your minds, with the eagle-eyed Statesman, upon 
the shining cliffs of fame : 

'' Who, that surveys this span of earth we press, — 
This speck of life in time's fjreat wilderness, 
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas, 
The past, the future, two eternities ! — 
Would sully the bright spot, or leave it bare, 
When he might build him a proud temple there, 
A name, that long shall hallow all its space, 
And be each purer soul's high resting place?" 

Fellow citizens : Whatever may be the fate of this great 
Republic, the renown of the orator is secure : Greece fell, 
Demosthenes still lives ! Should it be my country's doom to 
fall a prey to the furies of intestine faction, and all the em- 
blems of her beauty and her grandeur should lie scattered in 
the dust ; should she live only in the song of the Poet, the 
speculations of the Philosopher, or in the grand lamentations 
of the Historian, and the Orator ; — if ever, in after-times, 
some fond pilgrim of Liberty should visit these shores; — 
while standing at the base of Bunker Hill Monument, should 
visions of past glory crowd upon his imagination, and the 
" first great martyr,"* start from the dust, and wipe from his 
brow the blood of revolutionary sacrifice, and the sainted 
forms of heroes should gather around him, and would veil 
from their eyes the sight of the '• broken and dishonored frag- 
ments of a once glorious Union," — as that monument peered 
upward in the serene Heavens, and the light of imperisha- 
ble memories played around its summit, there should be 
written the name of Daniel Webster, bright, vivid, gleaming 
in evcrlastintr honor ! ! 








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